Interactive Digital Narrative researchers have used a variety of methodologies to assess players’ experiences with IDN processes, systems and artifacts. Interviewing and surveying have been the most prevalent methodology and, less frequently, recording in-process activities. Given the importance of interactivity and immersion, this paper considers how IDN research methods reveal player experience, player engagement, and/or player analysis. Drawing on related principles of IDN theory, sociocultural psychology and neuropsychological research, we present analyses of two phases of research in a real-time online IDN design learning workshop to compare contributions of in-process measures and interview measures of participant engagement. Analyses of data from each method reveal very different participant orientations in-process during an IDN design learning workshop and with an interview after the workshop. The analysis shows that in-process data align with neuropsychological definitions of flow: presence, relation, emotion, and conversational interaction. In contrast, the interview data align with definitions of metacognition: distance (past tense, individual focus), evaluation, analysis, and reflexive cognition. Based on those findings, we discuss how research methods affect definitions of fundamental concepts in IDNs, including interactivity and immersion. Implications include the need to clarify methodological labels and align chosen measures precisely with research questions and focal concepts, like interactivity. We also discuss how the complexity of IDN and the technologies embedded in digital systems allow integrating in-process and interview research protocols more centrally into IDN theory.